3 Nigerians Win Google Apps Challenge

VENTURES AFRICA – Three pupils of the University of Lagos, Willie Aniebet, Bolutife Ogunsola,and Michael Adeyeri, have emerged winners of the 2012 Google Apps Developer Challenge for the Enterprise/Small Business Solutions category, in the sub-Saharan Africa region, taking home a cash prize of $20,000.

As reported by BusinessNews, the trio developed the Form + application software; an interface that creates application forms by just dragging and dropping components.

The new App helps develop content and eases the process for creating Curriculum Vitae(CV) or resume submissions forms for businesses and coursework submission page for lecturers.

The students were awarded $20,000 and Chrome books, while they won for their Department a grant of $18,000 from the US-based search engine giant.

Mr Emeka Afigbo the Program Manager for Google stated “Our expectation is that this motivates more young Nigerian developers to develop apps that change the way we live in Nigeria and Africa at large.”

The award is an indication of the crop of IT talents in the fast growing country, needed to drive innovation necessary for business and economic growth.

Earlier this month, three Nigerian high school girls showcased at a Lagos technology fair, a generator fuelled with urine, which they innovated.

Developers from six regions across the globe participate yearly in the Google Apps Developer Challenge in a knock out mode in one of three categories – Enterprise/Small business Solutions, Social/Personal Productivity, and Not-for-Profit.

About Goke

Oyeniyi Adegoke is a staff writer for Ventures Africa and a business writer with passion for entrepreneurship and disadvantaged kids. He studied Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Lagos whilst co-building an indigenous social platform, ovaloaded.com, before it was bought over. Goke has published an e-book -- X the Box, managed the publishing of a national agricultural magazine and written several business plans and published articles.